Grimsby and East, July 22, 2009

With the Salmon Dance Tournament on Saturday, it was search time for quality fish. The pattern of shallow water kings was the target and we needed to find bigger fish amoungst a countless number of smaller salmon and numerous Rainbows. At 4:30 pm I met up with Ron Arnold to fish in his boat while John Poirier and Jay Whitwell fished together in John’s boat. East winds for the afternoon put a 3 foot roll on the lake that made trolling and driving a little sloppy. When we got out to 70 FOW we set up and continued to troll east into the waves looking for pods of fish. It didn’t take long to find the fish and John calls on the radio and hooks up with his first. Slide Diver out 100 ft behind the diver and 60 feet out to the diver using the Halo Miami Dolphin Warrior spoon. Jay finally landed it after a long fight and it weighed a little over 25 lbs on a scale that didn’t stay steady in the waves.

Then shortly after John calls again and had hooked up with another good fish on the other slide diver set the same distances but using the Michigan Stinger Stingray Coyote. That one weighed 23 lbs! Not a bad start for John with 48 lbs in the first two fish. John also managed another mature salmon at 18 lbs coming on the rigger down 50 feet with a 60 ft lead using Blue Killer Protroll and Atommik Tournament Hammer Fly. Temps down 40 ft were 48’F and down speed was 2.1 mph on Johns Depth Raider.

Ron and I managed 6 fish for 8 with the biggest being around18 lbs taking a Green dot/glow Protroll behind a Walker 107 Green Dolphin diver on a 3 setting and back only 45 feet off the corner of the boat. Ron doesn’t have downriggers on the boat so all of our rodshad walker 107 diver, Slide Diver and two 45m size divers on walleye rods trailing behind the boat.

Shane Thombs
www.fintasticsportfishing.com